Originally made with a German soundtrack for screening in occupied Germany and Austria, this film was the first documentary to show what the Allies found when they liberated the Nazi extermination camps: the survivors, the conditions, and the evidence of mass murder.


This movie is part of the collection: Short Format Films

Director: Billy Wilder
Production Company: U.S. Army Signal Corps
Audio/Visual: sound, black & white
Keywords: WWII; War Crime; Documentary; Short
Contact Information: www.k-otic.com

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: Rachael M. - - February 12, 2013
Subject: Very saddened.
It is a sad thing indeed when anyone can watch this and be so callous as to not feel any outrage for what took place. No one with any brains in going to hate the German people today for the past sins of their "fathers", that is not the point. This piece did not seek to recreate the daily life of the concentration camps, but to show the horror of what the allies found on entering them. The film, guessing from the opening, was not originally meant to be seen by the world at large, but by the German people and select groups in America, apparently, now it is available for public viewing.
Anyone not feeling a moral outrage at viewing this, I have to ask why? Do you not feel? Are we not human? This was an assault on all that is decent.There is no way to justify it. It was pure evil. No one says other countries have not committed their own genocides, but this does not cancel out the horror that was Nazi Germany. Anyone watching this without feeling outrage for the victims, must be a cold person indeed.
The film simply showed the horror, it didn't ask for us to politically debate our own petty grievances.What I think it does in showing the stark reality, is a hope that we are diligent enough to say this must not happen again. The fact that it does happen, should shame us all no matter how small a scale compared to theses death mills of Nazi Germany.

Reviewer: intruigedstudent - - December 14, 2012
Subject: EVERYONE
everyone needs to watch the nazi concentration camps. this is nothing. watchit and youll see why

i wont rate this film for that reason.im already differed

Reviewer: Andreas Meyer - - November 17, 2012
Subject: Highly deceptive and misleading
No, it's not. Death Mills is basic a vitriolic propaganda piece created by psychological warfare specialists with footage from German camps (when they came under Allied control), Auschwitz and yes even prisoners of war of the Allies. It does not give a true reflection of how the German concentration camps really were like.

Reviewer: BMBRKLRTXT - - April 27, 2012
Subject: Worldwide Terror
The killing in the concentration camps was the first organized killing system and it worked sadly and unfortunately perfect. I'm german and I'm sick of it when people point the finger on "german nazis" as the ultimate killers. Killing people is a woldwide desaster. Americans, Asians, Africans, South Americans, Europeans... And personally I think, it is much more worse, if these killings still exists after all what history told us!

Reviewer: hdl - - September 11, 2010
Subject: 20 million???
20 million???

Reviewer: bizzyditch - - August 7, 2010
Subject: Horrifying things that National SOCIALISTS did.
And let me mention that anyone who compares the deliberate and systematic murder of 20 million people to taking icky pictures of naked Muslims with their underwear on their heads is legally insane (yes, Zeugitai, that would be you.)

As to the film - it's very horrible, not too propagandish, except towards the end. Excellent America Army film.

Reviewer: Popeye Doyle - - February 5, 2010
Subject: Extreme but true
This is extreme, but true. Well worth a watch.

Oh, and may I remark that it was GERMANS who did this. Not Americans. They made mistakes, too, but not that one. Sorry for stating the obvious, but what was done here is and remains incomparable to the deeds of others. (@ zeugitai)

Reviewer: Zeugitai - - February 5, 2010
Subject: Americans. . .
Holy Americans traipsing across the moral high ground making stone-ignorant remarks about "communist China today" while their own global military and CIA murder people wholesale across the Middle East and around the world, imprisons them indefinitely, tortures them, all while ignoring international law, the Nuremberg Principles, and the Geneva Conventions! It's too much for me to take. Incredible. The film is something that should be seen by everyone as a lesson in how human beings, including Americans, are capable of treating one another. It is not to be construed as showing what "they" did to "them." Remember Abu Ghraib.

Reviewer: b8byc8kes - - January 6, 2010
Subject: Death Mills
Horrible, ghastly images of Holocaust victims from the Nazi master race. Be prepared to contain your humanity to endure the views of concentration camps shortly after liberation. Image after image of death lying on the ground and the few who survived looking like bags of bones. A strong image reminder of what is probably happening to the dissidents in Communist China today. I wonder when we will see the films of current 21st century death camps in China? Are we as guilty today as we were then to allow such atrocities? Or is it a lack of moral capacity? Riveting images.